Originally Posted by CraigCWB
Really getting tired of these claims that it wasn't the developers themselves that got greedy and sold out (or attempted to, since most of them fell flat on their faces) but rather some guys in suits who worked in the big city, who took advantage of some naive devs who were full of themselves and thought they deserved to be properly rewarded as the gaming gods they were, but were unfortunately cursed with a niche market space. The only reason anyone believes this narrative is that they aren't old enough to remember or choose not to remember, as they chose not to notice while it was happening. The devs got greedy FIRST, and then when they failed and found they had nothing to fall back on because they'd abandoned their core market, that's when they got bought out or otherwise fell under the control of the evil suited and moneyed ones. Because they were desperate and broke and didn't have any other options.

Kickstarter is a good alternative to the traditional venture capitalist approach for startups. It also gives industry retreads a second chance. However, Kickstarter is not going to prevent history from repeating itself.

As romantic as the notion of a starving artist is, the rich artist is much preferred. You can't really blame devs, most of which started with next to nothing, for trying to cash out. I'd do it in a heart beat and laugh at all the nerd rage on forums about it.